The Nationals are receiving exceptional starting pitching early in this 2012 season. Through seven games, the rotation was sporting a combined 1.99 ERA . Not bad. But with the news that slugger Michael Morse will not participate in any baseball activities for six weeks thanks to his strained right lat muscle, the question has to be asked: Can the pitching staff really keep carrying this struggling offense? In consecutive days this week, Washington scored four runs without driving in any of them with a hit and then won another game in extra innings on a hit batter, a single, a ground out and a wild pitch. Not exactly the 1927 Yankees here.
And losing Morse hurts. He had 31 home runs last season. Among batters with at least 850 plate appearances combined in 2010 and 2011, only 14 players had a better slugging percentage than Morse’s .539. He was expected to be the Nats’ clean-up batter. Now, at best they’ll have him sometime around June 1.
“It’s frustrating, and Michael’s disappointed,” teammate Ryan Zimmerman said. “I think with the year he had last year and how hard he worked in the offseason, how hard he wanted to come back … I think the hardest thing for him is going to be to be patient, make sure that he gets completely healthy.”
– Brian McNally
